WHAT I LEARNED AT IBC

During my trip to IBC in Amsterdam last month, I learned
some interesting life lessons: one, the domestically over-priced Heineken is
the Budweiser of Holland; two, a “fanny pack” means something COMPLETELY
different in the United Kingdom; and, three, the English are infinitely amused
that anyone would actually name their daughter Randi. (My parents plead
ignorance, by the way. “We just really liked the name. How were we to know?!”
they say defensively).

Some other interesting things I picked up over there include
seeing the new portable and high-res digital recorder from Codex, which records
directly from 2K/4K digital cameras. The company’s Paul Bamborough reports the
product can record up to one hour of uncompressed Viper material. He also says
there is no single point of failure on the drives and that users can pick what
format they want to work in, be it AVI or QuickTime, etc. The product will most
likely be available through rental houses, but post studios might purchase just
the bottom half of the unit, which can read the remove-able media Diskpacks of
the data captured on set.

Another product that created a buzz was the Red One
large-format digital camera — which when available could also be used with the
Codex recorder. For the first time, Red showed imagery captured with the One,
and some like what they saw, like Al Yousif, technical guru at London-based
Absolute Post. “I was very impressed with the Red One camera,” he reports.
“It's a 4K disk-based camera that shoots 1-120fps and it only costs $18K! They
projected the footage they shot using the new camera and it was stunning:
quality, range, depth of field and affordable!”

Others were a little more reserved in their judgments, but
all agreed that this product will be great if it does what they say it will do
for that price point. And the excitement surrounding the camera is good for the
industry in general.

And final thoughts about the RAI convention center: Love
that they built a beach for attendees. Very thoughtful. And those ladies who
just happened to bring bikinis to a trade show in Holland in September? What’s
your packing process like? Comfy shoes, map of the show highlighting companies
to see, teeny-tiny bathing suit. These bikini-clad “attendees” did give some of
those working the show something to look at while crossing from one hall to
another. While it wasn’t an added bonus for me and other females in attendance,
I do get it; it’s a man thing.